


Hey Nicki!

by rabbitgirl



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon, Romance, Tags May Change, Trans Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitgirl/pseuds/rabbitgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick has a secret. It's a secret that he's been holding onto for a very, very long time, and he's not sure that he can keep it hidden for much longer.</p><p>A sometimes fluffy, sometimes dramatic story about mtf!Nick. Tags to be updated as necessary.</p><p>Not connected to "Cards."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Little Duller

Nicholas P. Wilde has a secret, and no one - _no one_ \- can know about it.

Not his co-workers.

Not his friends.

Not his mother - though chances are, he could tell her and she'd forget as soon as he left the room.

Not Finnick, who he would trust with his life, but not this - though chances are that he'd be fine with it, just laugh it off, slap him on the back, and continue on like it's no big deal.

Not Judy, his friend of three years, his partner of two and a half, and his something-more for a scant month - though chances are, she'd be nothing but supportive, nothing but kind and caring, nothing but as sweet and loving and just generally _good_ as she's been since they first met.

Years of being a conman have taught Nick a thing or two about games of chance, and he knows that even when the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor, if the risk is too high, you _back out_. And right now, the risk is _high_. Those years of getting by on quick wit and an easy smile were _hard_ , there's no getting around that, and even if he still gets an _itch_ every now and then - even if he's tempted, once in a blue moon, to say _yes_ when Finnick jokingly asks him along on some harebrained scheme (not that he would ever use that particular word ( _especially_ not in front of Judy)) - at the end of the day, he's far happier where he is now than he _ever_ was hustling. He has a good job, a good home, a good group of friends, an _incredible_ more-than-a-friend, and he goes to bed with a full stomach and a full heart more often than not. No matter how good the reward might be, and no matter how good the odds are, if the risk is that any of this _might_ disappear, he's going to stay the hell away.

And in this particular case, if the dice come up snake eyes, _all_ of that goes away in the blink of an eye.

So he keeps his secret. And _no one_ can know about it.

_...Yet._

Because - well, he can't stop thinking, _what if?_ What-ifs keep him up at night more often than the things he sees on the job. _What if I lose everything_ , sure - _what if it goes bad, what if they hate me_ \- these questions are old friends, by now, but what really keeps him up at night, shivering a little, trying not to wake up Judy as she sleeps next to him, is the _big_ one. _What if it doesn't?_ What if, when this is all said and done, the dice come up perfect, he's dealt a royal flush, he hits twenty-one, square on the nose - what if the odds are in his favor and he can well, not _put this behind him_ so much as get it in _front_ of him? Actually address it? Start moving forward?

What if things turn out for the better?

 _That's Judy rubbing off on me_ , he thinks. Judy, with her endless optimism and can-do attitude and - and - not really _ambition_ , that's not quite right, but her... confidence. The unwavering belief in something _better_ , for her, for him, for all of Zootopia and the world beyond. That confidence, the belief that they can all _get_ there if they all just work hard enough - _that's_ where all this... _what-if_ -ing comes from. All this hand-wringing and thinking about the future and junk. Three years ago, he would've been more than happy to slide through life on one con after another, never looking more than week or two ahead, perfectly content (on the surface, at least) with where he was and where his life had taken him, but now...

He's come so far - is it really too much to hope for going just a _little_ bit farther?

Later, though.

Later, later, later.

Nick has been waiting for a very, very long time. He can still remember _not_ waiting for this, not wanting this; he can remember a time when this whole _thing_ didn't even register on his radar, and every now and again - more and more often, these days - he really, sincerely wishes he could travel back in time to when all of this was just a non-issue and he was just a normal kit like everyone else. He can't, though, (not unless some of his building's more _eccentric_ tenants can be believed,) so he continues to wait. Until it's the right time. Until someone starts picking up on the million little hints he drops every day. Until he's ready. Until he thinks _Judy's_ ready (hopefully, all those times he's volunteered them for crowd control during pride events will pay off). Until he's _sure_ that he can let it out without scaring people off, without burning every bridge he's built in the last three years; until there is a _guarantee_ that he can pull this off and still come out shiny on the other side.

Nick has been waiting for this for a very, very long time, and he can wait a little bit longer.

Except -

Well, he's not really young anymore, is he?

He's not really _old_ , no - not even into middle age, that's still nearly a decade off, but his twenties are almost over. He's got less than half a year until the big three-o is here, and... look - life has never really been _low-stress_ for Nick. As a conman, even if work was _easy_ , the threat of the police loomed over his head every day, and living accommodations were, well, transient at best. As a police officer, he finds that the tables have turned - most of his worries and anxieties come from the criminals that he once counted himself among; conmen and hustlers rarely pose a serious threat, but Zootopia isn't always a safe place, and every day is a roll of the dice on whether or not they're making it back to the station unharmed. Even as a kid, things were _rough,_ and they only got rougher the older he got. He's spent the better part of those almost-three decades looking over one shoulder or the other, and it _shows_.

It does to _him_ , at least. He can see it in the mirror, every morning. Little bags under the eyes. Poor night's sleep still hanging over him. Fur always a little duller, a little droopier, a little rougher. Judy teases him _relentlessly_ about it - _"Old Man Wilde"_ \- and for the most part, he doesn't mind the ribbing. She means well, and it the whole _age_ thing doesn't bother him, really. Until, that is, it starts to connect with this Thing inside him that won't sit still and won't go away, and _then_ all the little goofs and jabs start to pile higher and higher until the pressure becomes too much to bear and he just has to say "Not today, Jude" and talk about literally _anything_ that doesn't make him think about his secret.

It feels like a time bomb stitched into his heart.

And even though he knows better (even though he - in the dead of night, in rare moments of solitude - has read _countless_ stories and endless testimony from people who Waited and turned out fine), he can't help but feel the clock count down, one tick closer, every time that he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep with the words left unsaid.


	2. But What?

****Nick doesn't hate himself. Not really. Not anymore.

There are still little twitches of it here and there, though. He can't escape those; not now, and maybe not ever. That's just the way it is. Some of it is rooted in things he's done and the people he's hurt; some of it is just the stew of internalized speciesism that hangs over him, even long after he's proven he's more than the stereotype.

And some of it is the secret.

These days, it's not really the secret itself that bothers him. That's behind him - back when he was younger, it was just another ingredient in that mishmash of self-loathing that followed him around, but growing up changed that. Perspective changed that. Seeing that he wasn't alone, that he wasn't an _aberration_ or anything - it helped him come to terms with who he was (as much as can be expected), and while he wouldn't say that he's _proud_ of it, he doesn't _hate_ it.

What he hates is that he has to _keep it_ a secret. He doesn't like lying to people - _especially_ not to Judy - and as much as he might tell himself otherwise, a lie of omission is still a lie. A lie he can justify, a lie that he tells (or doesn't tell) out of self-preservation, a lie that hurts no one but himself - but it's still a lie, and Nick's trying to tell less of those these days. Whenever he can.

 

Undercover work is the exception.

Nick _loves_ undercover work. Old habits die hard, after all, and the fact of the matter is that he wasn't just a con man - he was a _damn good_ con man. The hustle comes naturally to him, and he doesn't really get a chance to flex his deceptive muscles too often (outside of keeping his and Judy's whole _situation_ a secret at work (and, of course, making sure _his_ secret stays secret)). Undercover work is great, though - he gets to trick and wheedle and fast-talk and _play the game_ for a bit, all in the name of justice. More _importantly_ , he gets to trade out his day-to-day disguise for one that's a little more fresh. A little less painful to keep up.

Usually.

It starts in the briefing room, as it does every morning, with Bogo at his (far, far too small) lectern, and all the currently un-bound officers and detectives sitting at attention. Nick and Judy were among those without active cases (their most recent (the disappearance of some hotshot stock trader) having been handily closed almost a week and a half ago), and when the chief utters the word "undercover," it cuts through the haze of disinterest surrounding Nick's _it's-way-way-too-early-for-this_ addled mind and sends his paw straight up into the air.

You don't really _volunteer_ for cases - you just kind of do whatever the Chief tells you to - but Nick is lucky, this time. Bogo already has Nick and Judy pegged for this particular assignment, and although he glowers at Nick's enthusiasm, he still hands over the file and tells them to get to work with a little glint in his eye that Nick doesn't quite get.

Until he opens the file and looks at what he just "volunteered" for, and his blood runs cold.

The job:

Pose as a pair of gun runners in order to infiltrate a smuggling operation being run out of somewhere in Sahara Square. (Easy. He's never been a gun runner before, but it sounds like fun? At least he'll probably get to wear a nice suit or something - the navy blues he wears on duty are _nice_ , but something a little sharper sounds right up his alley. And Sahara Square isn't his _favorite_ part of the city, but at least it's better than Tundra Town.)

The particular gun runners they're impersonating got picked up in a raid last week, but have been uncooperative at best. All the ZPD has managed to get out of them is the location of this next deal.

Luckily for Nick and Judy, the identities of the original pair are mysteries in the underground - all anyone really knows is their names and that they're small mammals. (Which explains, he guesses, why he and Judy got tapped for this assignment.)

And that they're a couple. (...Which explains the look that Bogo shot his way when he handed the file off. Not that he thinks Bogo _knows_ about him and Judy - no more than the rest of their co-workers _know_ \- but, well... he's heard more than a few mocking chants of _Nick and Judy, sitting in a tree_ whenever they get a little _too close_ at work. He doubts anyone's going to be _too_ surprised when they, uh... go _public_.)

And that they're lesbians.

 

_(...oh.)_

 

Which leads, some days later, to Nick standing in front of the mirror in Judy's little apartment, running through last minute preparations before they head out. Ostensibly, he's checking to make sure the disguise will hold up, checking that all the wires are hidden away nicely, no microphones are popping out of collars, no cables are visible under clothing. But really, he's just kind of taken with his whole... _ensemble_. He got that nice suit, of course, and nice shoes and a quick grooming, courtesy of the ZPD's dedicated undercover unit. But...

The suit is unmistakably a vixen's cut. The shoes are - not heels, but no one would ever mistake them for anything less than _effeminate_ footwear. And that grooming came with all these little hints of makeup and cosmetics here and there, fur brushed a little more carefully than he'd ever payed attention to it, and now that he's looking at it - wincing a little bit where it doesn't quite work, nearly _glowing_ where it does - well. It's nice. It looks good on him, and this - this isn't the first time he's been down this road, not really, but it's the first time it's _worked_.

And it's the first time anyone else has been around to see it.

"Looking good, Mrs. Wilde."

At Judy's voice, he spins around and - just barely - manages to convert the giddy, nervous energy rising through his chest into something a little more detached, a little smoother, a little more _Nick_ , and instead of shouting it, he just kind of purrs "Really?"

His heart breaks a little bit when she laughs.

(And he knows she doesn't mean anything by it, how _could_ she, but - still.)

Again, _Nick_ slides back to the forefront, and he performs another little bit of emotional slight of hand, disappointment and shame disappearing under the cup and - follow the penny, folks, see if you can see where it lands - just like that, it's gone, and when the cup comes up there's just more sarcasm and cool confidence. "My, _my_ , Officer Hopps, is this _doing_ it for you?"

She snorts and giggles (and it hurts again (a little less)) and shoves him away as she opens the door and steps out into the hallway.

"Come on, fox. We've got work to do."

 

The deal goes fine. Eventually.

 

But before that happens - before they send the crate of guns and ammunition off to whatever headquarters or warehouse or assorted den of criminal activity it's headed to, tracking device in place underneath all the plastic and metal - there's some waiting to be done. About an hour, sitting in the car (not _their_ car, not the cruiser that feels like a second or third home - just some junker they pulled out of the impound lot), maintaining radio silence and keeping the lights off.

Usually, this - the waiting - is one of Nick's favorite parts of the whole _cop_ thing. Staying awake is hard, sometimes. Staving off boredom and the sweet, sweet temptation of sleep is _very_ hard. But most of the time, he's with Judy - and while they don't usually get to be as _close_ as the do when they're alone at their respective homes, the need for decorum and professionalism doesn't preclude wiling away the long hours with stories, jokes, word games, the radio, fighting over the radio, sulking after losing the fight over the radio - even when all else fails, a companionable silence is usually pretty nice when it's with her.

Tonight is one of those silent nights. But companionable... might be stretching it. Nick is distant. Not quite cold, but definitely preoccupied. Judy's brief attempts at conversation die off after only a few traded sentences, and eventually, she gives up, and settles for staring quietly at the other end of the lot, watching for the double-tap of flashing headlights that serves as their signal for the meeting. And Nick? Nick watches the lot. But he also watches the mirrors. Intently, carefully, mind racing at a million miles a minute - trying to get a handle on the vixen looking back at him. And trying to figure out how he's going to go back to being _Nick_ , go back to keeping his secret, go back to _waiting_ , after this deal is done.

He's no closer to an answer by the time the lights finally flash across the way than he is when he left Judy's apartment, but...

_But what?_

 

He doesn't know.


	3. We Need To Talk

****Judy has never seen Nick cry before. And now that it's happening right in front of her, she doesn't know what to make of it.

 

Nicholas Wilde is not the kind of fox to wear his heart on his sleeve. That doesn't mean he's _emotionless_ , of course - it just means Judy sees how he's feeling a little less often and a little less clearly than she does with everyone else. Like his heart is - well, the whole "heart behind walls" analogy is a little overplayed, but it's something along those lines. Looking at Judy, you can see just about everything running through her head right there on her face, plain as day; looking at Nick, it feels like every thought is on the other side of a chainlink fence. Or three. It's there, but you have to kind of squint and tilt your head to figure it out.

She's seen him emotional. Nick usually projects an air of casual, distant _smarm_ \- something just north of indifference; apathy with a more contented edge - but when he gets pushed to extremes, he emotes plenty. Joy. Laughter. Concern. Sadness. Anger. Frustration. Confusion. Embarrassment. Shame. She's even seen him tear up - _just a little_ , that one time they went to see the movie about the robots in love (something he _vehemently_ denies ever happened) - but never _cry_. Not after that press conference, or at any point during the whole _Bellweather_ thing. Not after he graduated from the academy. Not when Judy ended up in the hospital, a little handful of bullets lodged in her left thigh. Not when he ended up in the same place three months later. Not at funerals, not at weddings. Never.

Until now.

 

That comes about a week and a half after their little stint undercover.

 

When the night was over, Nick said goodbye to the suit and the makeup and everything that his _disguise_ had entailed. Said goodbye to Judy. Went home. Fell asleep. Woke up, ate breakfast, hopped on the train to work, stopped at the little stand just around the block from the station for coffee and donuts, walked into the ZPD central precinct, dropped off his morning gift of sugar for Clawhauser, met up with Judy, gave her _her_ morning coffee, and got to work.

It was all very _normal_.

Nick hated every single second of it.

And as good as he is at not wearing his heart on his sleeve, as Judy might've put it, he's not _that_ good. After a few days, people start to notice. Clawhauser notices. Bogo notices. Fangmeyer and Delgato and Francine and all of his fellow officers notice that _something's_ up, but any casual inquires are shut down almost immediately, and pretty soon, people stop asking. Except Judy - who, of _course,_ notices. Judy recognizes that something is wrong, but her questions are similarly rebuffed - so if Nick won't let her help actively, she decides to try to do what she can to help out passively. Keep their whole buddy-cop thing going, even if she has to do 90% of the talking herself. When that doesn't work, she decides to give him some space. Not turn a cold shoulder, just... when the conversational silences come along, she decides to let them settle where they land.

Over the next week, the police cruiser becomes very, very quiet, and Nick becomes even quieter.

Judy is concerned, to say the least. Everyone has their down days - she's no exception - and given their line of work, she and Nick are especially susceptible to days when it all just gets to be a bit _much_. But as the week drags on, it becomes more and more clear that this isn't just a little _low_ period. When Nick comes back from a weekend of three-word texts and missed phone calls and looks _worse_ than he did when they said goodbye on Friday, concern blossoms into worry.

And when she confronts him about it and he snaps - _snaps_ at her that he "can't talk about it," her mind scatters. What couldn't he talk to her about? Was he in trouble? Was he - and she _hated_ herself for thinking this - was he getting _himself_ into trouble? Slipping back into the grift? Was he having family problems? Was his mother okay? Was he having _relationship_ problems? Was there something wrong with her? Or was it something worse than that? Was there someone threatening him? Was he sick? Was he depressed? Was he -

And on and on and on. Judy's ceaseless energy is something that she counts as an asset, but at times like these, it can hurt more than it helps - without anything concrete, without any _evidence_ , _nothing_ is too out there for her to consider and worry over. It's driving her up the wall, and she's _this_ close to doing _something_ \- tailing him home, talking to Bogo, going over his head - when she gets a call from the man of hour.

"We need to talk."

 

She isn't sure what to expect when Nick finally arrives at her door at 9:47 on a Tuesday night. She's spent the sixteen minutes in between Nick hanging up the phone and the door buzzer going off trying to figure all of this out, and working herself up into an almost-panicked frenzy as theories and counter-arguments race through her head (the leading theory: she did something wrong, and that whatever they are (which is still kind of _fuzzy_ , sure, but it sits somewhere on the other side of 'best friends,' and she _likes_ the other side) is over; the leading response: still a work in progress), but all of that goes out the window when she opens the door and sees how _scared_ Nick is.

"Hey," she says, "are you alright?"

Of course Nick doesn't give her a straight answer. He just mumbles something and walks inside and sits down on the little threadbare couch in the studio she calls home. And looks up at her. Fear rolling off of him in waves that she doesn't need a fox's nose to pick up. He waits for her to sit down next to him.

And, when she does, he - in slow, halting, uncertain words, tells her that he feels like he's a her and she doesn't know what to _do_ anymore.

 

To Judy's credit, she takes the whole thing in stride.

...Sort of.

She doesn't yell, or shout, or cry; she doesn't tell Nick that he's a freak, or ask him to leave, or threaten or cajole or plead; she isn't disgusted, she isn't angry, she isn't scared.

But it would kind of be easier if she was.

Because what she _does_ do is just sort of... sit there. Face blank, eyebrows sort of quirked in confusion, eyes looking at Nick the same way she'd look... at a not-particularly interesting newspaper headline that was worded kind of poorly? Confused and a little distant but not really _that_ worried about it, and that lack of _reaction_ \- no words of encouragement - or discouragement - not even an "uh huh" or "oh" or "I see," like she's still trying to figure out if this is a joke or not - that scares the _hell_ out of Nick. And even though he's sort of run out of things to say - it's really simple when it gets right down to it, he realizes, he can kind of sum this whole life-long _thing_ up in maybe five or six sentences - he starts stumbling over his words and repeating himself, fumbling for anything else to say so that the room doesn't just go _quiet_ again and pretty soon he's crying - like a _kit_ , oh jeez, he's supposed to be better than this -

Judy hears a sniffle, and she tenses up, and then a sob and she sees the tears falling and for the second time in the last five minutes she's left speechless, because Nick is _crying_ in front of her and - and what do you even do with that?

 

(It's not like this whole _concept_ is really new to Judy or anything. Before she came to Zootopia, sure, it was like - like any number of weird little subcultures and _things_ that you hear about on a farm but don't really see; you know they exist, and you probably have a (not-very-close) friend or (distant) relative who's _like that_ , but it mostly lives and dies as an _abstraction_. An idea. But being in the city and being on the force changed that - she's been through enough station-wide sensitivity training, and worked enough parades that she's more familiar with how the whole... _idea_ works. But that's not really the same thing as being confronted with it in person.

Especially when - this is _Nick_ that we're talking about, and - )

 

What you do, she realizes _very_ quickly, is you offer _comfort_ , and so she closes the distance between them in a flash and throws her arms around him (or as much of him as she can encircle) in a death grip that fails to stop up the tears - and pretty soon they're both babbling like children, talking over each other but not really listening - Nick giving voice to ever little fear that's been creeping up on him, lurking under his proverbial bed; Judy practically overflowing with reassurances and little nothings and "it'll be okay"s - until they're both kind of a big sobbing _mess_ of fur and saline.

The thing that sticks out to Judy is one exchange - maybe the only clear back-and-forth of words in their conversational maelstrom - where Nick stutters out in between sobs:

"I - I just n- _need_ you not to _hate_ me."

And Judy lets go of his midsection just long enough to grab his face and pull it down so they're looking directly into each other's eyes, and says - with no stutter, with no waver, nothing but that rock-solid Hopps confidence:

"I will _never_ hate you."

And then they're off to the races again, and the sobbing and crying and mumbles and murmurs starts up anew (not all sad, not all happy; it's plenty bittersweet on both side). But before long, sleep starts to settle over the room, and although there's still _so_ much talking to be done - because although there's been a lot of _speaking_ in the last however-many-minutes, very little was actually _said_ \- Nick is more than relieved when the world slowly starts to slip away, with the last lingering sensations of Judy next to him and an unsteady sense of relief carrying him into the dark.

There'll be time to talk in the morning.

 

Nick rests poorly that night. As to be expected. Every so often, when he - when _she_ surfaces, she finds herself tightly curled up into a ball on the bed, right next to Judy, in a nest of blankets and pillows that Judy must've made at some point, because Nick _certainly_ wasn't in a state to put anything together.

When she finds herself momentarily resurfacing into the waking world - two, three times while the sun is still set - she finds a dark, quiet room, and Judy sitting up - late into the night - one paw holding her phone aloft, brightness down as low as it'll go, and the other resting lightly on Nick's side. Nick doesn't say anything - she's rarely conscious for more than a minute or two before a hazy, unsettled slumber creeps back in, and she doesn't think that Judy even knows that she's woken back up - she just watches, quietly, as Judy scrolls and zooms and taps and reads away, slowly but surely building a library of bookmarks, resources, articles, guides - _anything_ she can find that'll put her in a better position to learn, to support, and to understand.

And every time Nick slips back to sleep, her future looks a little bit brighter.


	4. Still Nick

The city is quiet when Judy wakes up.

The night is slow to release it's hold on her, but even with the abysmal amount of sleep the night prior, Judy has a _routine_. Rabbits are creatures of habit, and for Judy, that means waking up at 5:30 A.M. _sharp_ so she can eat, get ready, and get to work half an hour before she _needs_ to be in. A half an hour before Nick gets in.

_Nick._

The events of the last night start to un-blur and take on a more concrete edge in the pre-dawn light. She turns to her right, where the fox is still asleep, folded into a complex twist of fur, tail, clothes, and blankets in the corner where her bed meets the wall. Complex twists for complex questions.

Well -

Are they really _that_ complex?

This is still _Nick_ , after all. Maybe with a different name or different clothes or different hormones - all of which are _very_ big maybes that they just didn't have the energy to cover last night - but at the end of the day, it's still Nick. Still her partner. Still her more-than-a-friend. Still takes seven packets of sugar with coffee. Still has an incurable addiction to blueberries. Still courageous and brave and sweet and smart and lazy as all get out. Still her sly, dumb fox (sly enough to keep this from her, and dumb enough to think that she needed to). All the rest of it is... not _unimportant_ , not _meaningless_ \- obviously, this means a _lot_ to  him _her,_ and if it matters to Nick, then, by golly, she cares about it too - but... it doesn't change anything. Or at least, not the heart of things - whoever Nick decides she wants to be, she'll still be the same fox that Judy met three years ago. The same fox that she lo-

_...likes a whole heck of a lot._

As it stands though - Nick's a _mess_. So is Judy, for that matter, and it's looking less and less likely that work is really an option for either of them today.

So, _very_ carefully, she extricates herself the tangle of blankets and bedsheets she crafted last night, picks up her phone, and creeps out into the hallway to make a call. Unluckily for her, the morning crew is still a ways off from arriving the station, and her call to the front desk goes to a very cranky, _very_ sarcastic woman who she's never actually had the displeasure of _meeting_ , but who never fails to make some snide comment or another anytime Judy has to call in.

Today, however, her call goes mercifully unchallenged - either the woman at the desk doesn't care, or she hears something in Judy's voice that keeps her from offering up any number of snippy responses, but when Judy says that she _and_ Officer Wilde will be taking a sick day, all she gets in return is a clipped confirmation and the requisite grumbled "get well soon."

With work taken care of, Judy slips back into her room, and after a moment - a long, quiet moment of watching Nick sleep - she slips back under the covers and nestles into the impromptu nest to let sleep find her one more time.

 

The bed is empty (again) which Nick struggles her way back into wakefulness. The world seeps back in, slowly but surely, stabs of color filling in the shadowy contours of Judy's (empty) apartment - better, marginally, than the broom closet she lived in when she first arrived, but not by much. Still not as nice as Nick's own apartment, but she doesn't mind. It feels a little like home.

For a while, she's content to just lay there and let the world wake up around her. It's... morning. Not quite late morning, but not early either, judging by the sounds outside and the movement in the building around her. Tenants in dozens of almost identically shaped rooms starting or continuing their days. (There's a rhythm to it, which she recognizes as kind of a hollow cliche but also something that's really true - the music of hundreds of thousands of animals moving in chaotic, wholly unsynchronized motion isn't even remotely recognizable as patterned or rhythmic, but there's _something_ there nonetheless.)

She's just about to wonder where Judy is when she hears a click at the door and, lo and behold, Judy sneaks in - coffee in hand, steps slow and quiet as she gently opens and closes the door, so as not to wake Nick. Until she sees her, that is - still in bed, unfolding and sitting up and blinking blearily at the little rabbit, still a little asleep, but more awake than not by now.

"Morning," Judy says quietly, as she pads over to the bed.

"G'mrning."

Judy extends one styrofoam cup. "Your coffee." A beat. " _Ms._ Wilde."

Nick stares at her blankly for a moment, eyes darting between Judy's hopeful smile and the coffee - and then lets out a kind of choked, hiccuping laugh, head in her hands. For a moment, Judy thinks that she's _already_ messed up, that she's just triggered the waterworks again - but Nick wipes her face off, runs her paws through her fur, and then accepts the coffee and offers Judy a very, very tired smile.

"Thanks, Carrots."

Nick takes a sip - far too sweet, far too hot, so much chocolate flavoring that it's basically just glorified hot chocolate, _absolutely perfect_ \- and lets out a long, happy sigh, and with it, the lingering tension and fear from the night prior. She's not going to say that everything is _perfect_ , but right now? It's pretty close. It gets a little bit better when Judy shrugs off her coat and hops up on the bed, sidling up to Nick and leaning against up against her.

"I called us in," she says. "The rest of the day's ours."

"Thanks," Nick responds. Gently, she leans over and plants a quick little _peck_ on the top of Judy's head, smack-dab in between her ears, prompting a groan of mock disgust and a paw pushing her muzzle away.

"Ugh, come _on_ , Nick," Judy says as she fails to hide a smile - "You're going to get that gross swill you call coffee in my fur." Nick just chuckles in reply and rests her head on top of Judy's.

_Still Nick._

"So," Judy says, "I think we have some talking to do."

Nick tenses up next to her, but Judy wraps her free arm around Nick's shoulders before the fox can pull away, and at the sight of Judy's smile, she relaxes again.

"Alright," Nick says. "Let's talk."

And they do. About everything - _how long?_ (too long) _why?_ (because it _feels_ right) _what can I do?_ (keep being _you_ ) _what about work?_ (later) _what about parents?_ (later) _what about everyone else? what about names? what about hormones and surgery and treatments?_ (later; later; later later later) _what next? -_ and although most of these questions don't have solid answers, the solutions get that much closer with every word passed between them. They talk for hours - with breaks to eat, to step out for food, to get cleaned up - and, at the end of the day, Nick heads back to _her_ apartment, and Judy stays at _hers_.

And although Nick falls asleep alone that night, she does so not with tears in her eyes, but with a smile on her face; not with dread at what the dawn brings, but the promise of better mornings to come - maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, maybe not next _month_ , but soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the big kids on the playground kept bullying me for having a straight ship, so obviously, THIS was the answer. sorrrryyyyy
> 
> i started writing this before Cards, so apologies to anyone who was hoping for more about ftm!Nick. maybe another day, but this is my focus right now - it's looking like it'll be maybe 13 chapters, and i got plans for another (short (???)) spinoff that i'll work on... eventually. i hope that these four will tide folks over (and work as a pretty solid self-contained story if i never come back to it) - the rest of it will get written when it gets written. 
> 
> thanks for reading, folks. y'all are cool as hell


	5. The Name Game

"Alyssa?"

"Pass."

"Meghan?"

"Eh."

"Agnes?"

"Come on, Carrots, I'm not _that_ old."

"Mmm. No comment. Carey?"

Nick idly taps her claws against the steering wheel as she stares at the traffic light ahead. "Hmm. Maybe."

With a satisfied grin, Judy makes a little mark next to the twelfth name on the list, and moves on. "Lisa?"

"Valentine?"

"No."

"Colleen?"

"Hmm... put it down as a _soft_ maybe."

"Freya?"

"I'm _pretty sure_ that's appropriative if I'm not a wolf."

 

In the two weeks since Nick aired her secret, this little game of theirs has become an almost daily thing. This is how it usually starts:

Nick and Judy will be alone. Oftentimes, this means sitting in the car, either on patrol or en route to _somewhere_. One of them will be driving, the other one will be looking out the window - whatever the configuration, they'll have hit a conversational lull, and whoever's in the passenger seat will take advantage of the situation. They'll say "So, I've been thinking"; the other will invariably reply "Oh? About what?" - and then the names start flying.

No one else knows about this - not yet. Not the game, and not any of it - despite Judy's assurances that their friends and co-workers and families are all _very_ open-minded, that Nick doesn't have anything to worry about, that it'll be _fine_ if Nick'll just trust her, Nick still holds tight to her secret. And while the idealism in Judy's words isn't unappreciated, Nick knows better. Three years after arriving in Zootopia, Judy may be more cognizant of speciesism and predator/prey stereotypes, but she's still naive about a _lot_ of stuff.

Including this.

Not that Judy's _unaware_ of the issues. She's plenty smart, she's done her reading, she's been through the standard ZPD-mandated sensitivity training - but, again, there is a difference between understanding that bigotry _exists_ , and recognizing it in their day-to-day lives. Nick knows how hard it is.

She knows that Judy _wants_ to believe in the animals around her - animals she loves, animals she cares about, animals she depends on, animals that she, time and time again, has had to trust will have her back on the job and keep her safe. These are Good Animals, and it's hard to accept that Good Animals sometimes think and say Bad Things. And while Nick knows that there's a lot more grey area than that moral dichotomy - after all, she has thought and said a lot of those same Bad Things, once upon a time - it's harder to keep that in perspective when she's the one getting hurt.

Because, even if she isn't _out_ , Nick still _hears_ them.

No one particularly close to them is a frothing at the mouth bigot - Nick's gotten pretty good at steering clear of those sorts of animals - but it's the _little_ things that hurt more. Snide little comments and innuendos, overheard in passing conversations (never aimed at Nick - why would they be?) - too small to really call out, too small to point at as definitively _bad_ , but they pile up. Day after day after week after month after year.

_Microaggressions_ , the ZPD handbook calls them.

It's a concept Judy is familiar with - she's dealt with a whole host of aggressions, micro or macro, all the way up through the academy and onto the force - and she _still_ has to deal with it, every now and again - but the blend of speciesism and sexism that _she's_ attuned to isn't quite the same as the little cloud of thoughts and words that follow Nick around like a swarm of gnats. It isn't as easy for her to pick up on. And every now and again, when Nick (quietly, out of earshot of the speaker) complains about something that she's just overheard, she can see it on the edge of Judy's lips.

_You're overreacting._

_Come on, I'm sure they didn't mean that_.

But Judy can also see _Nick_ , and she can see the way that these things get to her, day in and day out - and so she lets the words stay unspoken, and she sits, watches, listens, and learns. Day after day.

Judy's starting to hear them, too.

 

"Rosemary?"

"No."

"Petunia?"

" _No._ "

"Parsley?"

"No - can we just put a moratorium on the rabbit names, Carrots? Last thing I need is to share a name with one of the Hoppses."

Judy shrugs. "Nick, I already have, like, almost three hundred _siblings_. Don't even _ask_ me how many cousins. I _already_ know four Nicks. _Five_ , including you."

"Well," Nick grumbles, "all the better reason to pick out a new name _soon_. I don't need to be thinking about all the other Nicks in your life the next time we're in bed and - _ow!"_

Nick rubs at the sore spot on her arm, courtesy of a Judy-delivered precision strike, but she's still smiling.

Despite her exaggerated yelp of pain, Nick is too.

 

It's a fun process, but not a very _successful_ one. They've been through a _lot_ of names so far, and even if most of them have been nixed, there's still a list of maybes as long as Nick's arm. Part of the trouble is just not knowing what she _wants_ \- in a name, sure, but even just in a more _general_ sense. There's just... so _much_. The vast spectrum of identity and presentation and action that is encompassed by _being a girl_ is so, so big, and Nick has no idea where she lands in all of it. She knows that the vixen she wants to be is somewhere in those untamed wilds, but all she has is a broken compass and a torn up map, written in a language she doesn't speak, but that all of her fellow travelers have been learning since the day they were born.

(Lucky for Nick that she has a _fantastic_ interpreter.)

It's not like Nick hasn't had _ideas_. Mixed in with all of those _what-ifs_ about the future, Nick spent plenty of nights pondering names, wondering what it would feel like to have someone - not just someone, but _everyone_ \- refer to her as something besides _Nick._ It's daunting - in all of her almost thirty years, she's _always_ been Nick (and, recently, _Officer Wilde_ ), and even just imagining something else in place of that is... maybe a little uncomfortable, but a little _exciting_.

She considers The Name (and The Name changes every single time, which is part of the problem) coming out of her mother's mouth. Finnick's. Clawhauser's. The cute boy at the little kiosk across the plaza that scrawls _Nick_ on the side of her coffee every morning (except, of course, it's not _Nick_ when she's doing her pondering). Judy's parents. Hell, _Judy_ \- a lot of the time, that's what it comes down to. It's her own little litmus test - consider how any prospective name might sound, whispered out of Judy's mouth and into Nick's ear - something like...

 

"What about Nicki?"

 

What _about_ Nicki?

It's not the first time Judy's brought up the name - in fact, it was one of her first suggestions, back when they spent that first Wednesday just talking things through - but it's been permanently stuck at the bottom of the maybe pile this entire time. And every so often, Judy will bring it back up again, and Nick will respond -

"Eh. Sounds too much like Nick."

"But I _like_ Nick!" Judy will reply, with a little bit of a pout, and Nick will shoot back:

"Well, I _don't._ "

\- or something along those lines. And then they'll drop it and move on to the next one.

Until it comes back up again.

Nick keeps sort-of shooting it down for the same reason. It just seems so _easy._ Part of her wants to see this whole thing as a clean break - a chance to shrug off Nick Wilde and really become the vixen she wants to be (whoever that might be). It's a path she started on when she applied to the academy, and every day that she wakes up, goes to work, and helps to make her city a better place is another step down the path. There's... well, maybe it's the romantic in her, but there's something appealing about wholly and completely severing ties with the life she used to live, and stepping into a new one - new name, new image, a new _vixen_ \- goodbye, Nicholas Wilde (the conman), hello _insert-name-here_ Wilde (the police officer).

But -

But...

But she wonders if it _really_ works like that.

It does for some animals, of course - there's no doubt about that - but for her... as much as she'd like to pretend otherwise, she wouldn't be the cop she is today if not for all those years spent honing her skills as a grifter. Nicholas Wilde (the conman) is as responsible for her success as _insert-name-here_ Wilde (the police officer). Maybe it's foolhardy trying to separate the two parts of her entirely (something like, "You can take the vixen out of the hustle, but you can't take the hustle out of the vixen"?).

(Maybe.)

Which brings us back to Nicki.

Which isn't a bad name, not by a long shot, it just... feels a little too close? Too close to who she used to be. Too close to Nick, phonetically - too much like just a _nick_ name (which she mentioned to Judy, once, prompting a solid five minutes of laughter at the _completely_ unintentional pun).

Too _easy_.

...But she _does_ like the way it sounds. Sort of. It has a nice ring to it. It's sweet (and not _too_ sweet; not saccharine, not like a little kit's name). Nicki sounds like it could be pinks and purples and business casual and rugged flannel all in equal measure.

And when she imagines other animals - no, if she's going tobe honest, when she imagines _Judy_ saying it - bright and cheery at work; deadpan response to a truly awful joke; a playful whine as _Nicki_ holds the remote just out of reach; serious (all business) at a crime scene; in casual conversation (no pomp or circumstance, just Her Normal Name); a low and quiet _purr_ in her ear -

Well, that sounds just peachy.

 

"Maybe bump that one up to the top of the list, Carrots."


	6. More Nicki

It's Friday afternoon.

She can see it from a distance - the little brown box, shipping label marked 'AMAZOO,' wedged up against the frame of her apartment, waiting for her when she gets home. Nicki (who's sticking with the name on a trial basis, she supposes) is alone, at the moment - Judy is stuck at the station filling out paperwork, and for once, Nicki didn't wait for her to finish up. It's been a long day, and her body is just brimming with tension and anxiety -

_(Born, in this case, out of the most recent of a million little casual slights against - not her, exactly, but people_ like _her. This time, it was something she overheard in the bullpen - something about_ Guys In Dresses _, prompting laughter and derision and, from a few of her coworkers, outright disgust. It's nothing she hasn't heard before, but when mixed up with a poor night's sleep and a stressful week, it's just enough to force her out of the room, through the little maze of hallways - two lefts, a right, up a flight of stairs, and another right - to the (quiet, dark, unoccupied) ZPD parking garage, and into the backseat of her and Judy's cruiser, where she doesn't_ cry _\- but when Judy finds her nine and a half minutes later, her eyes aren't dry. When the end of the day rolls around and Judy ends up stuck at her desk, she practically insists that Nicki get home and get some rest without her.)_

\- all of which surges up as soon as she sees the little package and catches, right at the back of her throat, shimmering with excitement and fear and anticipation. She does her best not to freak out or move too fast or too slow, but it's six o'clock on a Friday - the hallway is empty, no one's paying attention or _cares_ what she's getting or how excited she is to get it, and by the time she actually reaches her apartment she's scrambling to pick up the package and slam the door behind her.

The package finds itself placed on the little card table that serves as her dining space with reverent awe, and before she does anything else, Nicki pulls her phone out of her pocket and shares the good news.

**nicki** : IT'S HERE  
**carrots** : OMG  
**nicki** : AHHHHHHH  
**carrots** : !!!!!!!!!!!!!  
**carrots** : WAIT  
**carrots** : PLEASE WAIT FOR ME I WNNA BE THERE  
**carrots** : *WANNA  


Nicki hesitates, for a moment, but -

**carrots** : i mean you dotn have to but if youre cool with waiting  
**carrots** : i wanna see my girl look good ;)  
**nicki** : no i got you!!  
**nicki** : YOU BETTER BE OVER HERE EARLY TOMORROW MORNING THO  
**carrots** : CAN DO, OCCIFER  
**carrots** : so really though arr you doing okay?  
**carrots** : after whay happened at work  


Nicki assures Judy that yes, she's doing okay, and as the subject moves to work, to the weekend, to tomorrow, to what's on TV, and so forth, the little cardboard box sits on the card table. Not forgotten - Nicki barely lets it out of her sight long enough to cook dinner and get cleaned up before bed - but unopened and unexplored.

Until the next morning.

 

Saturday.

Judy, true to her word, shows up bright and early, with a smile that stretches from fluffy ear to flurry ear and a level of energy most frequently seen in sugar-addled third-graders. Nicki answers the door on what she's pretty sure is the fifth round of knocking in under half a minute, still rubbing at her eyes and yawning wildly as she undoes the locks and lets her _Best Friend_ in.

Judy makes a beeline for the box while Nicki goes about eating a _very_ sparse breakfast (she says she's just not hungry, but to be honest, she's feeling a little nauseous and a more than little jittery), and spends the whole time glancing back and forth between the package and Nicki, until Nicki has to let out a nervous little laugh and ask her to sit down and turn on the TV or _something_ , Judy, _jeez_.

(For the tenth or twentieth time, Nicki reflects that it sort of seems like Judy is more excited about this than _she_ is.)

Her enthusiasm is infectious, though - not that Nicki wasn't already excited, but the way that Judy keeps _smiling_ sets her mind at ease. A little bit. Enough so that, half an hour down the line - once Nicki's eaten and showered and gotten herself all cleaned up - she steps into her bedroom, box in hand, and closes the door against Judy's sparkling eyes with a little less nausea and a little more excitement.

 

Nicki

looks

_...good?_

Yeah, she - she looks good. _Good!_ There's no question about that, it's just a little difficult to - to think of herself that way. But the evidence is right there, in the mirror, staring her in the face. Her outfit - one of two that were crammed into the little box - is simple. A clean, pinkish-whiteish blouse. A modest black skirt. A pair of these little stocking things. Nothing fancy, nothing as stylish or as well cut as that undercover outfit - it's a little tight at the shoulders, the skirt sits a little low (the price you pay for buying online, but there was _no way_ she was going to try any of this on in a store) - but it works. It _more_ than works.

_"Well?"_ rings out a muffled voice.

She turns toward the (still closed) bedroom door and hollers back "Hang on, hang on!" Nicki bites her lip and looks back in the mirror again. Nervously, she undoes the top button, then redoes it, then undoes it - or tries to, at least; her paws are shaking like they've never shaken before (it's a miracle she managed to get all of this on in the first place), and it feels like every nerve on her body is on fire - not in really a good or a bad way, just hyper attuned, hyper alert - and it takes her a couple of deep, rattling breaths before she can turn back towards.

"Okay," she calls out. "I-I'm ready."

She can hear the excited thumping of rabbit feet on the other side of the door.

And now, a drum roll, beat out against the arm of a chair by little bunny fingers, and Judy's hollering in her best 'announcer' voice - _"Laaaaadies and gentlemen, boys and girls, introduuuuuucing - Nickiiiiiiiii Wiiiiil-"_

Judy cuts the bit short when the bedroom door opens up and Nicki walks out. Not deliberately - it's just kind of hard to do funny voices when her jaw is on the floor.

"So?" Nicki says nervously. "What do you think?"

Judy realizes she's _staring,_ but oh _brussels sprouts_ what else is she supposed to _do?_ Her slack-jawed expression of awe slowly catches up with the giddy excitement that's rising through her body, and before she knows it she's _beaming_ across the room at the vixen and squeals " _Nickiiiiiii!_ Oh my - " she cuts herself off with a fluttering sort of gasp that would've made her mother proud, and her voice drops low as she eyes over her _very good friend_. "Oh my _goodness_ , Nicki, you look _adorable!"_

The nerves on Nicki's face slip away, replaced with an eager, hopeful smile. "Really?"

"Yes, _yes_ really, oh my - " Judy makes excited spinning motions with her paw, and by the time Nicki's finished with her first turn around, Judy's living up to her last name. She lets out another ridiculous squeal and pulls Nicki into a bone-crushing hug that a rabbit of her size should physically be unable to execute, but Nicki leans into it anyways, and if she tears up a little bit, there's no doubt in either of their minds that they're tears of joy (and maybe a _little_ pain).

The next few hours are a mess of impromptu fashion shows, picture taking, cuddling, and (unsuccessful) pleading on Judy's part to go outside so she can show the world how _pretty_ Nicki is - and although she eventually finds herself changing back into some more _androgynous_ streetwear so they can go get some lunch, she knows that she's found something that really _works_ for her. It feels better by _far_ than going undercover. It feels more honest. More her.

More _Nicki._


	7. Basically

"Hey Nicki, could you pass me that - "

Judy freezes before she can say _pen_ , because she - and judging by the look on her face, Nicki - has just remembered that she's sitting at her desk at work and _pretty much everyone_ can hear/has just heard her call "Nick" by her _proper_ name and

 

_Oops._

 

But:

 

A few of her fellow officers raise eyebrows and go back to what they're doing.

Fangmeyer grumbles something about pet names under his breath.

And no one really cares.

Because, well, Nicki is _basically_ just Nicky, and even with Judy's little slip up, no one's the wiser - which, for a moment, is a strangely crushing realization for the fox. That even with a different name, she'll still by _Nicky_ to too many people, and she starts to wonder (again) if it isn't maybe a good idea to choose a different name or just bring this whole endeavor to an end and -

Until Judy leans across their little desk, rests her paws right next to _hers_ , and says, almost at a whisper, "Could you pass me that pen? _Nicki?"_

 

As ridiculous as it sounds, she swears she can hear that i, clear as day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I definitely had three chapters kicking around that I never posted. ...My bad.
> 
> Now that I've taken my required four (?) months break, I have five or so other chapters (of varying length) I want to finish up and post at some point. But no guarantees on anything. I've been busy with original fiction, and I just jumped into my senior year of college, so... my plate's a little full right now. But I'll try.


	8. update, scraps, new fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey.
> 
> i don't think i can really communicate how cool it is that so many people read and enjoyed this fic. i started writing this about a week and a half or so after i came out as trans, and it meant a lot to me to write. even still, it means so, so much more that other people connected with and felt Ways about it. so, before i say anything else: thanks. y'all rule.
> 
> that said, i'm probably not coming back to this. i'm gonna post the few finished scraps i wrote as one chapter here, but my drafts have been drafts for going on a year, now, and i'm pretty ok calling this one Done.
> 
> THAT said...
> 
> look. i'm not very original. basically everything i've ever written, original or otherwise, is about 50% slice of life, 50% drama, and 110% trans. so, if by some miracle you aren't sick and tired of the very gay adventures of Judy and Nicki, i've written a spiritual successor that i plan on expanding out into a full series. it's a fair bit more downbeat than this, but man, life is pretty downbeat right now, and they say write what you know, soooooooooo i wrote about being gay and trans and depressed and coping by smoking a lot of weed.
> 
> it's not canon with this fic, but it's close. you can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13709805
> 
> anyways anyways anyways. here's the last three scraps i got for you. the first one is pretty sad and is about (non-major) character death; the other two are much lighter in tone. ill put a couple more notes at the end.

_She just went so fast._

Not like Nicki hadn't seen it coming.

Mrs. Jeanne Wilde had been sick for a very, very long time, and while Nicki grieves - of course she grieves; her mother left not even a week ago and the wound left behind by her passing still yawns and festers - her grief is not unprepared. Not unexpected. She wasn't blindsided by the news - surprised, yes, hurt, yes, but not blindsided. _This is the way things work_. This is the way it was always going to end, and somewhere deep down, she said her goodbyes a long time ago.

What forces the tears out - onto the headstone, onto the bouquet of flowers carefully placed there (sunflowers were always her favorite), into Judy's shoulder as they stand there (almost silently) in the quiet, sun-dappled field of graves - is that she said her goodbyes as Nick, and she will never have the chance to say hello as Nicki.

Nicki hopes her mother would've loved a daughter as much as she loved her son.

 

* * *

 

 

At it's core, being a successful conman (conperson?) means mastering the Arts of Deception as thoroughly and completely as possible. The fields of study within the Arts are myriad, and Nicki prides herself on having a nigh-complete (cursory) knowledge of each of them.

Lying? She can convince a fish it was meant to walk on land.

Sleight-of-hand? She'll let _you_ deal and win every hand, every time. (What game, you ask? _All of them_.)

Hustling? More than a few prospective pool sharks had lost their money to the young, stuttering, heavily-bespectacled fox with a tendency to sink the cue ball.

Seduction?

 _Not a chance in hell_.

Judy noticed Nicki's complete and utter ineptitude in romance a _long_ time ago. Before she came out. Before they became more-than-friends. Before Nicki had even gotten her _badge._  A particular incident involving a pair of flirtatious vixens and a one- _hundred_ -percent befuddled Nicki had ended with Judy needing to stage an intervention and feign an emergency at the academy - before the white patches of Nicki's fur turned the same shade as the orange. For whatever reason, the almost thirty years that Nicki had been on the planet had been romance-less (and, if there was any deeper reason, Nicki wasn't forthcoming with it, and Judy wasn't prying), and as a result, _anything_ past a congratulatory handshake tended to reduce her to a stammering, hapless mess. _Especially_ in public.

Judy _loved it._

 

* * *

 

 

It's Tuesday night.

Eleven, maybe; the clock is only _just_ a glance to the left for Nicki, but she and Judy are both too tired to check or care. This is a sleepy weekend, following a high-strung, caffeine filled week, and they're both content to just lie in a heap on the couch while Zootopia's partygoers and bar-hoppers live it up in the streets below.

Sleep is, for the moment, out of reach. Nicki can see it coming, billowing midnight sails just cresting the horizon - but right now she's just sort of drifting in a drowsy haze that's neither here nor there. The lights in the little apartment got flicked off a long time ago, and now the only illumination comes from what filters in through the open window and the TV in the corner. The TV softly murmurs little nothings into the room - echoes of some reality show marathon that started at noon and will probably still be running when they wake up in the morning - anger and typical TV drama that's slowly gotten quieter and quieter over the evening until now it's just miscellaneous sound, barely audible over their own breathing.

Occasionally, little snatches of conversation, horns honking, and music playing will float in through the window on a light summer breeze. Even this late, Zootopia still thrums with energy and _life_ , though the clamor and fervor of the city has dulled to a low hum that feels like it fills the room, occupying the space left empty by their silence.

It's nice.

Judy is out cold, it looks like - until she shifts in Nicki's lap, and mumbles something unintelligible into her thigh. Nicki bends down, and quietly murmurs back, "Hmm? Try again, Carrots?"

Drowsily, she lifts her head up to crane it back at Nicki, blinking through the sleep. "Umm," she begins, tripping across each word like a dead-tired toddler, "I was wondering what you'd - " _yawn_ \- "what you'd think if I... if I said that I didn't really feel like a girl. Not... all the time?"

The thought meanders through Nicki's ears and down among the walls and canals of her brain, but it doesn't have to far travel before she smiles, leans down, and plants a kiss in between Judy's ears. "I think that's just fine," she says with a small smile.

"Oh." Judy blinks a few more times, and then mumbles a happy little, "Oh, cool," lays her head back in Nicki's lap - and half a second later, she's out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a'ight.
> 
> if you're curious, the rest of this fic was supposed to be, roughly: Nicki meets the Hoppses as a girl and it's cool; Judy and Nicki go out on a date in girl mode and it's cool; Judy and Nicki go out on a date in girl mode and see someone from work, who outs them to Bogo; Judy and Nicki talk to Bogo about Nicki being trans and them having a relationship and it's cool. the end???
> 
> anyways - if you decide to follow me to the next fic, i'll see you there. i hope it's a satisfying follow-up. if you're just gonna chill here, though... thanks for reading. stay cool. luv u


End file.
